J300 Pan Am Closed Acceptances; Tiburon Challenger 125 Qualifying Complete, First Round Underway; Tien and Damm Added to US Davis Cup Team's Tie With Czechia Friday
The World Tennis J300 Pan American Closed in Spring Texas is a week early this year, but there is a two-week span between the US Open it. While that's a quick turnaround for American juniors, it's downright luxurious compared to the European Championships, a closed J300 in Austria, which began today.
The fields for the European Championships, which used to be among the prestigious event on the World Tennis junior calendar when it was in Switzerland in July are not good, with only one Top 10 boy, US Open semifinalist Thilo Behrmann, who I doubt would be playing if it were not in Austria. There are no WT top 25 girls in the field, with No. 30 Emily Eigelsbach of Germany the top seed.
In Spring Texas, the girls field does not contain any of the top US girls, although US Open semifinalist Melije Clarke, who lives nearby, said last week that she has not decided whether defend her title. She will need a wild card to do so, as she has not entered.
ITF J300 San Diego finalist Avery Alexander of Canada, at 62, has the highest ranking as of now. The top 100 Americans girls in the field are Hannah Ayrault, Maggie Sohns, Sarah Ye, Kennedy Drenser-Hagmann, Nancy Lee, Ireland O'Brien, Adla Lopez, Carrie-Anne Hoo, Emery Combs and Armira Kockinis.
The boys field has five Top 50 players, all Americans: Andrew Johnson, Tanishk Konduri, Vihaan Reddy, Marcel Latak and Safir Azam, although I don't think Latak will be there after his titles the past two weeks; from what he said in his interviews after winning the US Open boys title, he will primarily be playing the USTA Pro Circuit this fall. Johnson reached the Pan Am final last year, losing to Michael Antonius.
The only USTA Pro Circuit tournament is the ATP Challenger 125 in Tiburon California, with the qualifying completed today and five first round matches played.
Three Americans have qualified: Ryan Seggerman(Princeton, UNC), wild card Bryce Nakashima(Ohio State) and Evan Zhu(UCLA). The other three qualifiers are current or recent collegians: LSU sophomore Erik Arutiunian of Belarus, Timo Legout(Texas) of France and Luca Staeheli(NC State) of Switzerland.
Michael Zheng(Columbia), now up to 88 in the ATP rankings after reaching the third round of the US Open, will defend his title as the top seed, with Nishesh Basavareddy(Stanford), the 2024 Tiburon champion, is the No. 2 seed.
Wild cards were given to Aidan Mayo, JJ Wolf(Ohio State) and Sebastian Gorzny(TCU, Texas).
In today's first round action, Wolf defeated Argentina's Luciano Ambrogi, a recent addition to the Oklahoma roster, 6-2, 6-0; Patrick Maloney(Michigan) beat Alastair Gray(TCU) 6-3, 5-7, 7-6(3); No. 4 seed Michael Mmoh defeated Karue Sell(UCLA) 6-3, 6-2 and Abdullah Shelbayh(Florida) got past Tyler Zink(Georgia, Oklahoma State) 6-4, 3-6, 6-3. Fifth seed Tristan Boyer(Stanford) and Edward Winter(Pepperdine) of Australia are playing tonight.
The USTA announced today that Tommy Paul and Taylor Fritz have withdrawn from this weekend's Davis Cup second round qualifying against Czechia in Prague. Learner Tien(USC) and Martin Damm have been named to replace them and will be making their Davis Cup debuts. Ben Shelton(Florida), Christian Harrison and Austin Krajicek(Texas A&M) round out the roster.
0 comments:
Post a Comment